Nigel Farage has piled the pressure on Downing Street over a growing electoral fraud inquiry by giving police a dossier about the Tories’ battle to stop him becoming an MP.

Police are investigating whether the Tories broke spending laws when they defeated Mr Farage in the 2015 Thanet South campaign.

A dossier passed to police included the astonishing claim that the party’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, passed confidentialUkip data about local voters to the Conservatives to help them defeat Mr Farage.

Douglas Carswell, pictured right, has been accused of passing confidential Ukip data about local voters to the Conservatives to help them defeat Nigel Farage, left, in Thanet South

If the police probe leads to criminal charges, it would force a new vote in the constituency – giving Mr Farage the chance to finally win a Commons seat. He has pledged to stand again if the investigation results in a by-election.

The investigation has rattled No 10 because one of Theresa May’s most influential advisers, her chief of staff Nick Timothy, was present in Thanet South during the campaign.

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Kent police are examining whether Craig Mackinlay, who won the seat for the Tories with a majority of under 3,000, exceeded the strict limit on local spending by recording the cost of deploying aides such as Mr Timothy under the party’s ‘national’ spend.

The Conservatives insist Mr Timothy was only in the area to ‘provide assistance for the Conservative Party’s national team’. But Ukip claim he was heavily involved in the local campaign to defeat Mr Farage, and was drafted in by party strategists as a ‘heavy hitter’.

During the campaign, Mr Farage was dining in a restaurant in the constituency when he spotted Mr Timothy and other Tory aides on another table.

Mr Carswell and Mr Farage on Downing Street

Mr Farage went over to the group, glass in hand, and said: ‘So this is what I’m up against, is it?’ When Mr Timothy refused to talk to him, Mr Farage returned to his table, muttering ‘F*** them’.

The dossier also claimed Clacton MP Mr Carswell helped breach the spending limits by working in secret for the Tories against his own party.

Ukip sources produced computer logs which allegedly showed that Mr Carswell had repeatedly accessed details of Ukip backers in Thanet South. The sources told officers that this data was passed to the Tories, who used it to contact Ukip supporters to try to persuade them to switch camps.

Mr Carswell strongly denies the claim.

A Ukip spokesman said: ‘Justice needs to be seen to be done. If, as seems increasingly likely, the law was broken in Thanet South, the seat should be rerun. Rich parties should not be able to buy politics.’

A Tory Party spokesman said: ‘During the General Election campaign, Mr Timothy was a volunteer for the Conservative Party. He helped to develop policy on immigration, crime and policing, and counter-terrorism.’

An earlier version of this article said the former UKIP election strategist Chris Bruni-Lowe had given the evidence to the police about the dossier. We have been asked to make clear he was not involved in the party’s supply of the information and apologise for suggesting otherwise.